Depalletizing is an essential function which usually involves moving a strapped palletized load to a destrapping station for removal of the straps, either manually or by means of a destrapping robot, such as is described in our US Patent Application US2007/0044603 Al Scholtes et al. (the contents of which are incorporated herein by cross-reference; see also FIGS. 6 and 7 of the present application which are recreations of FIGS. 2-3 of US 2007/0044603, with “A′s” added after the reference characters for clarity). The top frame of the palletized load is then removed by means of another mechanism and put on a stack for subsequent use. The pallet is then conveyed to a depalletizing station where a robot carrying a forklift mechanism depalletizes the load in a known manner.
It will be appreciated that the need to move the pallet from the destrapping station to the depalletising station is time-consuming, and that the need to provide a destrapping robot, a top frame removing mechanism and a depalletising robot increases capital costs and ultimately the total cost of operations.